You may not be surprised, that I find the information in that article not really amusing. Under this information, the battery day is going to be a classic “half true release” event (or BS show). It is clear, that Musk is moving from NMC chemistry produced by Panasonic in Fremont to some Lithium-Iron-Phosphate chemistry produced by CATL in China.

First at all, it is very possible, that the battery based on LiFePO4 cells can last 1 mill. miles. Why? Because this cell can execute 2 000 cycles (while NMC maybe 800 cycles). Can we call it a breakthrough? Absolutely not. This chemistry may be new to Musk, but LiFePO4 is known to the industry for ages.

In these days, I do not have too much time for research, so please allow me some “shortcuts”. Musk used MNC because of high energy density. To get 300 miles means to carry around almost one ton of batteries. LiFePO4 (40% less) has smaller energy density. So they either reduce the range of Model 3 MIC or increase its weight. Model 3 is already too heavy, I bet on smaller range. The cell has also lower voltage, but is is safer than NMC without Cobalt (used by TSLA).

You can read about LiFePO4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery or on the Battery University.

Net, net: It is going to be a great show about nothing major. Something like the Semi introduction. Musk needs badly to keep the share price elevated for his personal reasons and this event with just serve this purpose. People are generally stupid and despite the fact that “critical thinking” is part of the secondary school education, not used too much. They will just eat what Musk is going to serve.